Pakistan: Winter vacation for schools, colleges will be moved to January

Islamabad: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), Pakistan’s nerve centre monitoring the COVID-19 situation, has decided to move the winter vacation for schools, colleges and universities from December to January in view of the ongoing vaccination drive in schools as well as to make up for the prolonged closure of educational institutions during the first and second wave of COVID-19.

However, a final notification in this regard is awaited.

Every year, the winter holidays start during the last ten days of December and end in the first week of the new year.

Pakistan’s Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood a day earlier in a tweet had also announced that the officials of the Federal and the Provincial Ministries of Education had met to discuss and decide about the winter vacation. “The agreed proposal was that the winter holiday should be from December 25 to January 4. Further notifications will be from the concerned governments,” said the Minister in his tweet.

Thsi will be taken to the NCOC that will make a final decision.

In its Wednesday meeting, the NCOC had in principle decided to shift the winter vacation from December to January but they require an approval from the Sindh government, said a senior official of the Ministry of the National Health Services who attended the meeting,

The provincial government of Sindh has already announced a schedule for winter vacation according to which the schools and colleges will close from Dec 20 and resume work on January 1, 2022.

Since all the decisions of the NCOC are taken with consensus, we are trying to get a nod from the Sindh government on this crucial issue, the official further said.

Punjab too announces holidays from December 21

A day earlier, on Tuesday, the Higher Education Department of Punjab had announced winter holidays in the province’s schools, colleges and universities.

According to the official notification, all schools, colleges, and universities in Punjab will remain closed from December 21 to January 2 due to the prevailing cold weather in the province.

Almost 58 million of Pakistan’s population has been fully vaccinated, while 136 million have partially received COVID-19 vaccine jabs.

According to the Ministry of the National Health Services, with 615,424 persons fully vaccinated in the last 24 hours, Pakistan’s number of fully vaccinated has climbed to 57.97 million. In the last 24 hours 1,105,444 doses of vaccine, both partial and final, were administered, it further said.

According to Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar who is also chairman of the NCOC, the government has set a target of 70 million fully vaccinated people by Dec 31.

Pakistan continues to register below 1 per cent COVID-19 positivity and on Wednesday too, 0.82 positivity rate was recorded as 370 persons tested positive after 44,609 tests countrywide during the last 24 hours.

Four persons succumbed to COVID-19 during this period while 194 persons were recovered, the NCOC statistics reveal.